


pages of our lives

by zhuzhubi



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Dad Spencer Reid, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Meet-Cute, Post-Break Up, but the meet cute is in the past, the one that got away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27851362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhuzhubi/pseuds/zhuzhubi
Summary: dissatisfied with your life, you find yourself thinking about the man you left behind ten years ago(or, spencer is reader’s one that got away)
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Reader, past Spencer Reid/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	pages of our lives

**Author's Note:**

> this fic made me thing of water fountain by alec benjamin for some reason
> 
> also im zhuzhubii on tumblr and i like friends :)

Lately it just feels like you’ve hit a slump - like you’re really not sure what you’re doing with your life. Here you are at thirty-five, and suddenly the job you worked your ass off to get and sacrificed so much for feels like it doesn’t mean anything at all. Or maybe that’s not true, not exactly - you love your job, you love where you live, you have great friends…

But it just feels like something is missing, and the truth is you know exactly what that something is. You’re longing for a partner, for a family - for all those things it seems like the people around you have already worked out. You’re lonely. You’re lonely because the last time you dated anyone was almost three years ago, and that guy was a bit of a douche if you’re being completely honest. Definitely not someone you wanted to settle down with.

The thing is, though, that you’re really not sure how to go about finding someone - you’ve been focusing on your career so much these past few years that it feels like you’ve forgotten how to flirt, how to date, how to…do any of that stuff. 

And that’s how you find yourself reminiscing on your past relationships, remembering cuddling on the couch and throwing popcorn at each other as some romcom played in the background. You remember two sets of shampoo and shower gel and toothbrushes, playfully arguing over the best breakfast foods. Kissing through morning breath, hands trailing over your sides and sex that wasn’t just about physical pleasure. 

You find yourself thinking about Spencer Reid, about meeting him in the library twelve years ago while you were still working on your masters. He was just over a year younger than you, twenty-two and baby faced - you remember seeing him walk through the shelves with a mountain of books in his arms, the stack teetering as he walked on spindly legs, pausing every so often to add yet another to his collection. You remember reaching for the same book as him, his hand brushing yours and then him stuttering, “O-oh, I’m sorry! You can take it, I mean I, um…I-I have lots and I can just come back tomorrow instead -”

And then he stumbled backwards a few steps - his feet caught on the carpet and he fell in a heap to the floor, his books tumbling down after him. He started scrambling to pick them up, sputtering, “O-oh no, oh I’m sorry! I-I’ll just -” his voice jumping up an octave and redness creeping up his cheeks.

You remember giggling and him freezing, looking up at you with hurt that melted away as soon as he took in your amused expression - you bent down to help him gather his books, offering “I’m (y/n)” as he continued to blink at you in wonder.

You remember what he said two years later, too, a resigned sadness painting his features as he watched you pack your things. “You know,” he mumbled as he stared down at his hands and how they twisted together, “That day, when we met? When I dropped all those books and you giggled, that…that was one of the first times I felt like someone was laughing with me, not _at_ me. And I know this is the right thing for you, that… _leaving_ is the right thing for you. I just… wanted you to know that because…you might forget me, but I’ll never forget you.”

You let the wrinkled shirt in your hands fall back into the drawer, into the dresser the two of you had been sharing for a little over a year. You took _one two three_ steps until you were standing right in front of him, cupped his face with your hands and thumbed over his cheeks as you whispered, “Don’t you say that. I’ll never forget you either - me leaving has nothing to do with a lack of loving you, because I love you _so damn much_ Spencer Reid. But I love my career too, and this job? This opportunity? It’s too good to pass up, I-I have to take it.”

Spencer didn’t say anything in response to that - he didn’t need to. His job was his everything too; at twenty-four and twenty-five neither of you was ready to sacrifice your career for the sake of your relationship. The timing wasn’t right, that’s all.

Now that you think about it, it’s your only relationship that didn’t end due to a lack of love - you loved him even as you got on a plane and moved half-way across the country to chase your dreams. A part of you still loves him even now after not having seen him for ten years - maybe that part of you always will. He was your first, after all. Your first serious relationship, the first person you could imagine spending your life with, even though you weren’t ready for it back then.

You wonder if he still thinks about you, if he looks back on the two years you had together just as fondly. If he thinks about reading in the library as you sat next to him and studied, or curling up on the couch and watching Doctor Who re-runs for hours. You think about that one time he tried to cook for you and ended up setting off the smoke alarm, about how he used to hold you when you broke down from the stress of your classes. You think about how nervous he was the first time you had sex, about how gentle his hands were as he explored someone else's’ body for the first time. About the way he looked at you afterwards and whispered, “You’re wonderful, you know that right?”

You find yourself walking through the doors of that same library, the one you met Spencer in twelve years ago. It looks the same other than some minor rearrangements and it suddenly hits you that although you’ve been back in DC for a few years now, the library isn’t on the list of places you’ve revisited. 

It’s Saturday morning, so there are people around - there are kids activities going on in the children’s section and older folks browsing the shelves. 10am is a little early for students on the weekends, but you spot a few of them chugging coffee and grumbling over laptops and thick textbooks. It feels so strange to be back here, to be walking through a space that feels both so familiar and so foreign at the same time. 

The library was always a place you went with Spencer - it’s where he rambled over the newest fields of research, where he excitedly led you back and forth through the neat rows and taught you the Dewey Decimal System. Suddenly you feel exposed without him, like it’s somehow wrong to be here alone. You push the feeling down and start looking through the seemingly endless rows of books instead, just to have something to do while you reminisce. 

You spot a flash of curly brown hair out of the corner of your eye, but you ignore it - there’s no way that he would happen to be here, right? But something inside of you tells you to look, tells you to turn your head because what if -

It’s Spencer. It’s definitely Spencer - _oh wow_ , you find yourself thinking, _he looks older_. And then you chuckle to yourself - _of course he looks older, it’s been ten years_. You look older too, you’re sure.

Some kind of feeling builds in your belly, something like hope? Maybe? It feels like a sign, like this was meant to be - after all, what are the odds of running into him again after so long? You find yourself walking over to him, pausing for a second to run a hand through your hair before tentatively taking those last few steps.

“Spencer?” you ask, “Is that you?”

He jolts up at the sound of your voice and it reminds you of the way he used to get lost when he was reading. He blinks at you a few times, then rubs a hand over his eyes and blinks a little more. You can see the exact moment that it dawns on him - his eyes brighten and he smiles, stuttering out, “(y/n)?”

“Yeah it’s me,” you reply with a grin, “it’s been a long time.”

“Ten years, two months, and five days,” he says automatically and it’s so…so _Spencer Reid_ that you can’t help but laugh, “So, uhh, how have you been? What’re you back in DC for?”

“I, um, I actually moved back here a few years ago. I ended up getting a job offer here, so I decided to come back, I guess. Are you…are you still at the BAU? ”

“Yeah,” he nods, stuffing his hands in his pockets in the same way you remember and biting his lip as he tries to think of something to say.

The silence is a little awkward in a way it never used to be with Spencer - you used to go hours without saying anything at all, just sitting together and breathing the same air. You suppose you shouldn’t have expected it to be the same after all this time, but it’s still strange to not be in tune with him anymore.

“I-I,” you stutter, “I don’t know why I’m here - at the library I mean. I just…had the impulse to come today even though I haven’t been since…um, anyway - isn’t it funny that we happened to run into each other? It’s almost like…”

And then you trail off, noticing that Spencer stopped paying attention to you at some point - he’s looking somewhere over your shoulder and you’re just about to follow his line of sight when -

“Daddy!” a tiny voice shouts as footsteps patter along the carpet floor. Spencer leans down and scoops up the little girl running toward him, resting her on his hip as she waves a glue-y mess of construction paper and pom-poms in his face and exclaims, “Look what I made! Look look look!”

Spencer looks at her with all the adoration and love in the world, chuckling as he says, “Shhh, pumpkin - we have to be quiet in the library, remember?” He tickles her sides and she giggles, squirming in his arms and whining, “Daddyyy!” through her laughter. 

“What’s this?” he asks her, looking over her art project as if it’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

“It’s a giraffe!” she exclaims, gasping immediately after and whispering, “Oops! _It’s a giraffe!”_

Spencer bounces her on his hip a little and smiles like you’ve never seen him smile before. “I love it,” he says as he presses a kiss to her cheek, making a show of going _mwah!_ as she wiggles and laughs, “Ew, yucky!”

He glances up for a second and startles - it’s like he was so enraptured by his daughter (his daughter!) that he completely forgot you were there. “Oh!” he gasps, “Sorry, this is Isla - my daughter.”

And then you notice the things you’d overlooked before - he’s been glancing towards the children’s section the entire time you two were talking. There’s a little bit of glitter in his hair. He’s wearing a wedding ring. It hits you all of the sudden that you just assumed he’d still be single. The thought feels silly now that you’re really looking at him - maybe he was still waiting for you after a year, maybe even two. But it’s been a _decade_ , and it’s obvious that he moved on a long time ago.

“She’s beautiful,” you tell him, “She looks like you.” It’s true, she does.

You chat with him and Isla for a little while before you make your excuses and leave, heading home to your lonely apartment and wondering why you ever let him go. It’s not that you regret it, not exactly - taking that opportunity all those years ago was the right decision, you’re sure that you would have grown to resent him if you had stayed. And you were right to end things too, neither of you would’ve been happy with a long distance relationship.

It feels so final, though, to know for sure that he’s not there to fall back on. And you can’t stop yourself from dreaming about what might have been.


End file.
